
THREE DECADES 



RossiTER Johnson. 












THREE DECADES 



READ BEFORE THE ALUMNI OF THE 

UNiyERSITY OF ROCHESTER 

JUNE 19, 1894 



BY 

ROSSITER JOHNSON. 



/ryo^ 



.6 



THREE DECADES. 



Yerse is the gift of youth. The song-birds cease 
Their warblings when the springtime blossoms fall ; 

The summers strengthen and the fruits increase 
To a more sober music ; and the tall 
Ripe grain that tosses like a plumed pall 

Nods to funereal measures, till at last 
The sickle undermines the golden wall, 

The dream of glory fades into the past. 
And through the stubble cries the shrill autumnal blast. 



4 THREE DECADES. 

II. 
Youth may be pardoned for its lack of thought, 

Its careless rhymes and repetitious song ; 
It can but know the little that is taught, 

It can but guess at life — and guesses wrong. 

But in the bubbling spirit it is strong. 
That stirs and strives within the blood and brain. 

Propels the rolling world its course along. 
And drags the cautious elders in its train. 
And scales the mountain height, and dares the furious 

main. 

III. 
Kot so with one who in maturer time 

Essays to sing for more exacting ears. 
He must forget his early, empty rhyme. 

And strike to sterner music, as he peers 

Along the path of thirty vanished years 
That lies between him and the college doors, 

Where he went in with all a freshman's fears. 
And looked amazed at Learning's awful stores. 
Until he sat among the gentle sophomores. 



THREE DECADES. 5 

IV. 

Our lives are little, but our times are great. 

We come, we see, we linger, and we pass ; 
Weave but a single thread in web of state, 

Or give the field a single spear of grass. 

We are too often like a boyish class, 
Where each one stumbles through his dozen lines. 

And looks bewildered at the stubborn mass 
Of foreign words and intricate designs, — 
But lo ! when all is done, through all an Iliad shines. 

V. 

'Twas thirty years ago when thirty youth 

Approached the House of Life, beneath whose door 
A sheet of lamplight hinted at the truth 

Of warmth within and many a generous store. 

A murmur now, and now a loud uproar. 
Seemed to proclaim the revel at its height. 

And, thrilled with expectation to the core. 
Each heart beat doubly furious at the sight. 
While eager, trembling feet soon crossed the threshold 

bright. 



6 THREE DECADES. 

VI. 

What there they found, it is not mine to say. 

One door there is that shows a welcoming spark 
To those who come ; for those who go away 

There is another door, of little mark, 

Forever open but forever dark ; 
And those who pass that portal never tell 

What they have seen of pleasure or of work, 
Or whether sadly they have fared or well. 
Or care to come again, or wear a different spell. 

VII. 

But from the windows of that House of Life 

They saw such mighty things as not befall 
Twice in a century : — scenes of deadly strife, 

Where thirty million people had their all 

Put at the hazard of a cannon ball ; 
And other scenes where Science, Genius-led, 

Walked through a maze of wonders, and did call 
The simplest peasant from his humble shed 
To share with her such power as kings might dream or 

dread. 



THREE DECADES. 7 

VIII. 

They saw, while all their youthful hopes were warm, 

With years in sunny lines before them planned, 
The culmination of the mightest storm 

That ever gathered in a Christian land. 

It seemed the snapping of the final strand 
That binds a nation to its hearts and homes — 

The sudden payment of a long demand — 
The reaping of a whirlwind such as comes 
With measured tread, and muskets' glint, and roll of 

drums. 

IX. 

Hamlets unheard-of fifty miles away 

Became historic-when their streets ran blood. 

And gentle streams that through the meadows play. 
With rippling song that only sang of good. 
Told henceforth to the overhanging wood 

A tale of sorrow and unending tears, . 

And bore a stain that neither ebb nor flood 

Can wash away through all the coming years. 
Till Greed forget his crimes, and Sympathy her fears. 



THREE DECADES. 



Yet wisdom was not wanting to the tale, 

And History wrote new marvels in her age. 
She saw, one April morn, the glories pale 

Of all the naval heroes on her page. 

In single ship or battle-line they wage 
Successful warfare ; but behold at bay 

Fortress and iire-raft, hulk with chain and kedge, 
Gunboat and ram, all blazing in the fray. 
And all by our great sailor conquered in a day. 



XI. 

In ancient times the spirits of the slain 

Were said to fight again in upper air, 
While still their comrades struggled on the plain 

Or rose in ghostly ranks to join them there. 

But in our western Alleghanies, where 
The Chattanooga through its valley goes. 

An army clambered up the mountain stair. 
Plunged into clouds, and then beyond them rose, 
And crossed the yellow moon, pursuing still their foes. 



THREE DECADES. 
XII. 

There was one Marathon in Greece of old ; 

There is one Waterloo in Belgium now ; 
And yonder, nestled in a gentle fold 

Of the Blue Eidge, along a hillock's brow, 

Lies a great field whereon the reverent plow 
Follows the selfsame lines that once it drew ; 

For there three thousand patriots sealed their vow 
To be to Freedom and their country true. 
And made of Gettysburg a three-days' Waterloo. 



XIII. 

There, as it should be when a people rise 

In the true majesty of final law. 
Was little of the tactics of the wise 

Or brilliant general, neither did it draw 

From accident or from opponent's flaw 
The great result. ]^o whirl of Fortune's wheel 

Determined who the bitter leek should gnaw. 
The brains were with the hands that held the steel, 
And stubborn will prevailed against a fiery zeal. 



10 THREE DECADES. 

XIV. 

From such, of such, for such, a great man rose, 
Amid the rudeness of the wondrous West, 

And carried all the burden of our woes 
With gentle words and sympathetic breast. 
And ever edged his wisdom with a jest. 

While deepened still the lines that care had worn. 
His finger on the people's pulses pressed, 

Until the burden and the heat were borne. 
Then vanished like a dream, — and we forever mourn. 



XV. 

The days and deeds of Eighteen-hundred-twelve 

Returned again when Winslow steamed away. 
And Yankee sailors fitted a new helve 

To their old battle-axe for British prey. 

They found a lurking thief in Cherbourg bay. 
And called him out one Sunday afternoon, — 

An English pirate in Confederate gray, — 
And waltzed him down to Dahlgren's liveliest tune. 
And marked in brilliant red this nineteenth day of June. 



THREE DECADES. U 

XVI. 

But not alone in war's destruction blend 

The glories of these decades just laid low. 
" He with the thunder talked as friend to friend," 

Said poet, of a poet, long ago. 

Behold where now the friendly lightnings flow 
From house to house, from town to town, and take 

Yoice, cheirograph, and features to and fro. 
For distant parent's, brother's, lover's sake, 
And cause the very accents of the dead to wake. 



XVII. 

For yellow gold, in dust, or quartz, or mass, 

The Forty-niner struggled round the Horn, 
Or crawled with ox-team through the mountain pass 

Where high Sierras hid the light of morn. 

The Sixty-niner, whirling by in scorn 
Upon his iron road, rolled swiftly down 

Through Sacramento's fields of wheat and corn. 
Where wide-horizoned farm and thriving town 
Looked to the azure sea or to the mountains brown. 



12 THREE DECADES. 

XVIII. 

Then Seward bought his icebergs of the Russ, 

And wild Alaska was a new domain, 
Whence nought before had ever come to us 

But wolves' long howl in Campbell's sounding strain. 

And our explorers crossed the glacial plain, 
New science and new history to learn. 

The Yukon has its folk-lore, and the rain 
That falls on St. Elias soon will turn 
The humming wheel where now the lonely camp-fires 

burn. 

XIX. 

Not ours alone, but every continent 
Of all the five that ocean flows around, 

In those three daring decades was uprent 

With mighty heaval from the human ground. 
When thrones and systems felt the pulse profound 

Of throbbing thought and its majestic pace. 
As some great nation gave a forward bound. 

And growing Freedom won a wider place 
In all the hopes and plans and movements of our race. 



THREE DECADES. 13 

XX. 

France from lier lethargy at last arose, 

And shook the nightmare Emperor from his throne, 
And learned new lessons from ancestral foes, 

And taught them something they had scarcely 
known — 

How patient industry may be the bone 
And life-blood of a nation, greater far 

Than frowning fort, or military drone, 
Or rifled gun, or general's blazing star ; 
Because it builds anew, and shames the waste of war. 

XXI. 

Last of the nations, old and strange Japan 

The ancient feudal system swept away. 
Rose to the stature of our modern man. 

And let the light of intellectual day 

Through all that bright fantastic screenery play, — 
Nor took alone, but something also lent 

Of art and cultivation as her pay 
For power and learning from the Occident — 
And found a fresh career, with energies unspent. 



14 THREE DECADES. 

XXII. 

Dark were the people, and their land was dark, 

When Yasco sailed around their southern shore, 
A mighty blot upon the earth's great arc. 

Forbidden ground — a mystery now no more. 

Unroll the map, and quickly con it o'er : — 
ISTyassa, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, 

Congo, Benguela, Namaqua, Darfoor, — 
Familiar names as those of Europe are, 
Revealed and lighted up by Afric's rising star. 



XXIII. 

Grandest of all, where much seems more than grand. 

The death of slavery in these fertile years — 
Kussia, Brazil, and this our own dear land, 

^o longer watered with a bondman's tears. 

All hail Brazil ! who stands among her peers 
A people's empire in this western world. 

Where never more a single throne uprears 
Its shape anachronistic, blood-impearled. 
And Freedom's sacred flag shall never more be furled. 



THREE DECADES. 15 

XXIV. 

Once to your college halls I bade farewell, 

And twice returned to read a simple measure, 
To tickle fancy with the rhythmic spell 

That gives an equal glow to dross and treasure ; 

And now a third attempt, by your good pleasure. 
Be this the last. And let some younger voice 

Hereafter wile away your evening's leisure 
With graceful art on themes of lighter choice, 
That sadden less the ear and more the heart rejoice. 



XXV. 

For I have dwelt so many years afar 

From this the scene of youth's delicious days. 

And turned so often to the evening star 

That dropped on you the plummet of its rays. 
And felt the rush, the swirl, the swift amaze, 

As day chased day in ever hastening flight, — 
I could but trace again the earlier ways, 

And speak once more the feelings, true but trite, 
Of one who knows full well 'tis time to say Good night ! 



16 THREE DECADES. 

XXVI. 

A drowsy infant when your story's done — 
A schoolboy tinkering at his broken skate — 

A youth who sees the final dance begun — 
A lover leaning o'er a garden gate — 
A maiden listening for the word of fate — 

A soldier thinking of to-morrow's fight — 
A statesman conscious of expiring date — 

A watcher doubtful of the morning light, — 
I understand them all : they hate to say Good night ! 



GUSHING. 



He wrought a deed of darkness that shines in light 
eternal. 
His errand was destruction, but he builded for all time. 
Behooves his grateful countrymen to keep such memories 
vernal, 
When they trace the lines of history or build the poet's 
rhyme. 

'Twas the fourth and final season of that struggle for 

existence 

When the great Republic trembled from circumference 

to core ; 

17 



18 GUSHING. 

When a million men were battling, o'er a thousand miles 
of distance, 
And six hundred war-ships watching a thousand leagues 
of shore ; 



When the schoolhouse was a barrack, and the flag flew 
from the steeple ; 
When women paced the hospital, and old men ran the 
mill ; 
When every throb was quickened in the pulses of the 
people, 
While the sentries walked in silence and the guns were 
never still. 



'Twas the summer of the Wilderness, that dark and 
bloody thicket — 
The summer of Cold Harbor, of Atlanta, of Mobile — 
When the shadows on the hearthstone seemed to hush the 
very cricket. 
And Doubt, with somber presence, sat at every morn- 
ing meal. 



GUSHING. 19 

At the little town of Plymouth sixteen hundred under 
Wessells 
Blocked the port and held the post against nine thou- 
sand under Hoke — 
Held it with their hasty earthworks and their little 
wooden vessels, 
Till the iron monster Albemarle came down the 
Roanoke. 



All day long, in heavy columns, the determined foe 
assaulted ; 
All day long the stout defenders held the lines before 
the town. 
Though their dead were piled in winrows, yet the rebels 
never halted, 
Till they reached the very muzzles of the guns that 
struck them down. 

But the Albemarle, the monster with her prow beneath 
the water. 
And her sloping sides of iron, and two-hundred-pounder 
balls. 



20 GUSHING, 

Came steaming down the river, like a dragon to the 
slaughter, 
To enfilade the land-works and destroy the wooden 
walls. 

Down she came with steady purpose, of the shot and shell 
unheeding — 
Bows on, she struck the Southfield, and the Southfield 
was a wreck ; 
Drove adrift the small Miami, with her crew all torn and 
bleeding, 
And her brave commander Flusser lying dead upon the 
deck. 

And the other craft were scattered, and her guns were 
turned on Plymouth, 
Where Wessells' sixteen hundred thus far unmoved had 
stood. 
"Lo, the foe in front we baffle, but behind comes up 
Behemoth, 
And our little fleet has perished, and we are but flesh 
and blood." 



GUSHING. 31 

Here the white flag of surrender — there the black flag of 
no quarter 
For a hundred Carolinians who were loyal men and 
true, 
With the oft-repeated savagery of vengeful death or tor- 
ture 
For three hundred dusky freedmen who had donned 
the army blue. 

Thus fell Plymouth, and the Albemarle returned unto her 
mooring, 
And the British blockade-runner sailed once more the 
Roanoke — 
Carried rifles, carried powder, carried bullets death-insur- 
ing,— 
Until young Lieutenant Cushing to his ship's com- 
mander spoke : 

" Be it mine to meet the monster, with a score of trusty 
sailors. 
In the blackness of the midnight, with torpedo, launch, 
and fall ! 



23 GUSHING. 

River bed or wreath of glory, grim stockade with sullen 
jailers, 
Wounds or blindness, fail or triumph, life or death, I 
risk it all ! 



" Only give me first a furlough, that my sisters and my 
mother 
I may visit once again, lest I shall see them never 
more." 
In his Northern home those dear ones hide the pang they 
can not smother, 
When he hastens back to duty on the Carolina shore. 



In a moonless, cloudy midnight a small launch crept up 
the river — 
On her bowsprit a torpedo, in her hold a score of 
men. 
Every tongue was tied to silence, every nerve was on the 
quiver, 
Till the great hulk loomed above them, fast asleep with- 
in her den. 



CUSHINa. 23 

Round about her for a rampart, slowly rising, creaking, 
falling, 
Swayed a raft of heavy logging, with the motion of the 
tide. 
Cushing's little craft backed water, to the farther shore 
close hauling. 
Then with full steam darted forward, climbed the logs, 
and reached her side. 

" Who goes there ! " a flash of lightning leaping out from 
that dark cover, 
And a mammoth shot went crashing through the launch 
from stem to stern. 
But Gushing pulled his lanyard, and the Albemarle 
turned over. 
Like a giant on his deathbed when he gives the final 
girn. 

Eighteen men were killed or captured. One with Gush- 
ing swam the river, 
While the bullets pelted round them like the drops of 
coming rain — 



34 GUSHING. 

Swam the river, waded marshes, found a skiff in leafy 
cover. 
And when morning light was breaking reached the 
friendly fleet again. 

Thus he wrought the deed of darkness that shines in light 
eternal ! 
Thus his errand was destruction, when he builded for 
all time ! 
And we, his grateful countrymen, must keep such memo- 
ries vernal, 
On History's heroic page and in the household rhyme. 



THE INDIAN TRAIL. 



In days agone, where rocky cliffs 
Kise far above the river's vale, 

There was a path of doubts and if s — 
We called it then the Indian Trail. 

In ragged line, from top to base, 

O'er shelving crag and slippery shale. 

By brush and brier and jumping-place, 
Wound up and down the Indian Trail. 

No girl, though nimble as a fawn, 
'No small-boy cautious as a snail, 
25 



26 THE INDIAN TRAIL. 

Ko dog, no mule, no man of brawn. 
Could safely tread that Indian Trail. 

Beyond the age of childish toy. 
Before the age of gun and sail, 

The fearless and elastic boy 

Alone could use the Indian Trail. 

'Twas like a great commencement day, 
Like change from little fish to whale. 

From tearful March to smiling May, 

When first you climbed the Indian Trail. 

I've threaded many a devious maze, 
And Alpine path without a rail. 

Yet never felt such tipsy craze 

As touched me on the Indian Trail. 

'Twas easy by the White Man's Path 
For all the lofty cliff to scale ; 

But boys returned from river bath 
Preferred to take the Indian Trail. 



TEE INDIAN TRAIL. 27 

Our younger brothers, who'd insist 

Upon their rights of taggle-tail, 
Were shaken off and never missed 

When once we reached the Indian Traih 

And those who plundered orchard crop 

Regarded not the farmer's hail, 
But left him puzzled at the top. 

While they went down the Indian Trail. 

All this was years and years ago — 
To count them now would not avail — 

And every noble tree is low 

That shadowed then the Indian Trail. 

The beetling cliff — ah, what a sin ! — 

Is full of vaults for beer and ale ; 
The rocks are stained like toper's chin. 

Where flourished once our Indian Trail. 

They've stripped off every bush and flower, 
From Vincent to Deep Hollow dale ; 



38 THE INDIAN TRAIL. 

The charm is sunk, the memory sour — 
There is no more an Indian Trail. 

Far driven from our hunting-ground 
On breezy hill and billowy swale, 

Some wander still, but some have found 
The skyward end of Indian Trail. 

Dear boys ! it takes away my breath, 
To think how youth and genius fail. 

Those grim pursuers, Time and Death, 
Are baffled by no Indian Trail. 

Life yields such comfort as it hath, 
But labor wears and custom stales ; 

I plod all day the White Man's Path, 
And dream at night of Indian Trails. 



WHEN FOOLISH WORDS. 



When foolish words have been forgot, 
And wiser memory reads between — 
Like some dear child's handwriting seen 
Half blindly through an awkward blot — 
How clearly runs the legend then, 

There's something more in friendship's faith 
Than careless hand or vagrant breath 
Can make or break with tongue or pen. 

Yet foolish words will have their sway, 
Like smoke that wraps a generous fire 
And forces tears and rouses ire. 
And seem decisive for a day. 

I owe your memory heavy debt, 
My friend of many sacred years ; 
But would you double these arrears, 
Learn also sometimes to forget. 



AN ISLAND LYRIC. 

A POEM IN TWO GAUGES. 

The Poet, sojourning on an Island in the Atlantic, receiveth an 
Order for a Poem. But the careless Editor neglecteth to tell him the 
Width of the Column. Therefore the Poet, anxious to Please, writeth 
his poem Twice over, in different gauges — which incidentally illustrateth 
the Elasticity of Language. 

NAEROW GAUGE. 

See the fog ! 
Hear the dog ! 
Feel the wind, 
How imkind- 
Ly it blows 
The wild rose. 
And the waves, 
How they roar 
30 



AN ISLAND LYRIC. 31 

In the caves 
By the shore. 
The poor bird 
Never heard 
Such a strife 
In his hfe. 
And the fish 
In the dish 
Scarcely wish 
They were free 
To go back 
To the black, 
Angry sea. 



BEOAD GAUGE. 

Behold how Nature's mantle wraps this isle 
In fold on fold of gray and fleecy mist ! 

Hark how the canine creature doth beguile 
The weary hours, and never will desist ! 

With cruel power the blast remorseless blows, 
And fairest things before its fury quail ; 



32 AN ISLAND LYRIC. 

It tears the petals of the wild brier rose, 

And rudely scatters them about the vale. 
Through the dim corridors of ISTeptune's caves 

That underlie the crags along the shore, 
With step unsteady go the wandering waves, 

And answer back to one another's roar. 
On yonder tree the poor affrighted bird 

Cowers, forgetful of his gushing song ; 
Such direful tumult he has never heard 

In any season of his whole life long. 
How very nice these browned and basted fish 

Are, with the buttered muffins and the »tea ! 
Ah, quiet rogues, I know you do not wish 

Yourselves again in that tempestuous sea ! 



